“Leigh Greden apologizes to Ann Arbor City Council” reads the first words of an AnnArbor.com news piece from last Friday.

Apologies are important, we might therefore reasonably conclude as readers of news. As I write my own column today, I see that the “apologizes” story has 0 Votes so far — but it’s followed by a string of 35 Comments. And with little more than a word change here or there, it could easily sound like a dialogue between clients in my office.

Husband and wife, discussing the reasons they’re divorcing. Lots of hurt, lots of questions.

Now I pride myself in being someone who can draw reference to persons in conflict without immediately implying a pejorative. My opening approach whenever asked to help resolve a dispute is that each side reasonably thinks their point of view legitimate. Regardless of how opposite one is from the other. Or how far apart.

Mediate this to some livable consent agreement for ending the relationship, and you may well think you’re in line with the record of Solomon as laid down in 1 Kings. But then comes the apology. Sometimes it’s requested; sometimes self-generated.

Quite often, however, it becomes the next thing about which to fight.

Why?

I can’t find the word “apology” in my New International Version. (Maybe it’s a scotoma.) But in 2 Corinthians 7:9, Paul’s letter speaks to the broader implied purpose of what we’d hope motivates this expression. “… I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance” [emphasis added].

Biblically, think atonement or restoration. Moses approached the Lord directly on behalf of his people, with the hope, he said at Exodus 32:30, that “perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” We confess and ask forgiveness of our shortcomings in order to restore the relationship that God intends us to have with Him.

Yet Jesus underscores the importance of first straightening things out among ourselves here on earth. At Matthew 5:23-24, we hear Him say, “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the alter and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the alter. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.”

Mechanically, Jesus lays out the how? of this in Matthew 18:15-17.

“If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”

Notwithstanding the “tax collector” reference here, how on earth could an apology along these lines have been properly, effectively delivered by Leigh Greden to the Ann Arbor City Council? To his constituents? To fellow Council Members Mike Anglin and Sabra Briere?

Was there even a Matthew 18:15 option here for “just between the two of you” (by which I’d take it, two sides)? If so, how would we know? And if we didn’t know, wouldn’t that be an invitation for conjecture — assuming the worst? Or concluding that no accountability had been forthcoming?

At the same time, does an apology automatically shift the spotlight and create an obligation on the part of its recipient to act in a certain way? Either “I accept your apology, on your terms, or now I become the wrong one”? What if you’re not ready? Should the apology-recipient then apologize to the apology-maker for not accepting the apologizer’s apology?

Apologies invariably fail because we demand so much from them. Minimally, it seems, they must provide closure with the neat, complete, and immediate delivery found in old television episodes of Perry Mason.

On top of that, they must do so for two opposite extremes.

Valuable as working toward this ostensibly Christ-centered objective can appear, there’s an even larger specter looming and putting it on a trajectory toward human impossibility.

Just 5 responses into the Comments that followed AnnArbor.com staffer Ryan J. Stanton’s reporting on the Greden versus Council matter here, Rusty Shackelford dropped the L-word. “Legal” concerns must necessarily instruct almost any apology we’ll see these days, including those from government officials. “Any apology to the Ann Arbor taxpayer,” Mr. Shackelford asks, “for the legal costs we’re paying as a result of his almost certainly illegal secret discussion of parking construction?”

“Guilty” or “not guilty” (shouldn't there be such a thing as just “innocent”?), ask any litigant and they’ll tell you that the out-of-pocket cost that must be paid just to prove this are exorbitant. Remember that famous quote by Ray Donovan, secretary of labor under President Ronald Reagan, who was acquitted in a case involving the New York City Transit Authority.

“Where do I go to get my reputation back?” Mr. Donovan asked. His day in court was expensive, albeit acquitting him. In the end, he still felt that history would leave him painted as a wrong-doer.

Can anyone blame Mr. Greden for being a bit circumspect in wording his minutely-documented, video-captured apology, then? At the same time, given those very words, can anyone blame those who were left feeling hallow after hearing them delivered?

I’ve always felt the Catholic Confessional was a wonderful gift from God. It’s at once cleansing, freeing of any burden we carry into it, however large or small. At the same time, we have the Priest as God’s representative to provide that tangible bridge of assurance with words we can actually hear: “You are forgiven.”

Husbands and wives need that from God and benefit from it. So, too, I believe, do elected representatives, the councils of which they are a part, and the people who put them into those positions of trust. But genuine, meaningful apologies aren’t a practical option in this world as man has constructed its rules and options. Thus, no apology will ever fully close the matter for the one who apologizes; it will never fully satisfy the one who believes an apology owed to him or her.

The best on earth that we’ll see of this is some 35 Comments about the issue, pro and con.

As I say to the husbands and wives who come to me looking for marital accountability as they face divorce, don’t be discouraged by lack of resolution to your debate. After all, God knows what’s on the heart of every man. Luke 16:15.

Leave it to Him for determining if that true knowledge will ultimately prove a blessing or curse.

Dell Deaton is a divorce pastoral counselor, independently practicing since 1983. He can be reached through www.divorcepastor.wordpress.com or on (734) 668-2001 in Saline. Also check out /divorcepastor to Follow me on Twitter.